Sheetfed Solutions
Consumer behavior continues to shape package printers' need for sheetfed offset presses.
By Chris Bauer
WHEN IT COMES to corrugated package printing, sheetfed offset suppliers suggest printers remember the old saying, "The customer is always right." Customers want shorter runs of high quality work and cost-effective results. This is why suppliers say sheetfed offset is the perfect solution.
"For the folding carton and the packaging industry, sheetfed offset is really the production unit of choice," offers Achim Schmidt, packaging manager for Heidelberg. Schmidt believes sheetfed offset presses are the answer for shorter runs, more flexible and versatile press operation, and higher quality work which cannot be achieved with any other printing process in a cost-justifiable manner.
"You can always go gravure, which is very competitive when it comes to quality, but the cost of cylinders is high," Schmidt maintains. Rudy Valenta, manager of corporate sales for MAN Roland, adds that flexo plates are also expensive, with litho plates proving less costly. The quality of offset is better than flexo, he says, while admitting gravure quality is good but has a high cylinder price tag. "The best option is sheetfed litho," Valenta concludes.
At Drupa, Heidelberg introduced a new press for the packaging industry. The Speedmaster CD 74 has a 23 1/2x 29" sheet size, and is designed for just-in-time jobs with short run lengths. The Speedmaster CD 74's CP2000 Center activates an array of automation to speed makereadies. Its double-diameter impression cylinders and AirTransfer sheetflow reduces waste.
Meanwhile, at Graph Expo 2000, MAN Roland will introduce to the North American market the MAN Roland 200E, a 13,000 sph, 20" x 29" sheetfed press that offers fast makeready and quick changeovers, reduced waste, and simplified operation. It is designed for printers entering the four-color market or expanding production capability. The 200E can handle up to .032" board or foil.
According to Schmidt, press manufacturers are launching smaller presses because printers feel it is not cost-justifiable to run short-run jobs on large presses, or even 40"presses. But Bob McKinney, director of marketing for KBA, sees things a bit differently. He reports selling a tremendous amount of 64" presses to the packaging market, and does not foresee that demand going away.
"There was a trend a few years ago to downsize to 40" presses," McKinney recalls, noting automation on larger presses was then unavailable. "But today, larger presses run the same speed as the 40" presses—the makeready time is the same, the manning is the same, but at the end of the eight-hour shift you have double the output, with a machine that is not nearly double the cost."
"That whole trend of customers downsizing to 40" has screeched to a halt," he adds. Printers are going back to larger press sizes because the output is better and the parameters are basically the same. That is not to say KBA does not make and sell smaller offset presses, McKinney says, but they are not as popular.
The KBA RAPIDA 74 is a new development in a 20" x 29" format. It is designed for highly specialized applications, such as packaging or printing on plastics. The RAPIDA 74 offers unit-type construction with up to eight printing units and coating systems. It features substrate flexibility, high levels of automation for shorter makeready times, and efficient production.
Speeding up
For package printers, time is money. Printers want faster ways to get a job completed. Suppliers suggest press speed is not the key issue, however, since presses often do not run at their rated speeds.
There are other ways to look at the speed issue. "DRUPA showed clearly which direction the market is going, and that is integration of prepress and press," Schmidt says. "That is really what it boils down to. How fast can I get proper plates on my press?"
The future is not another notch up in press speed or another notch up in automation, suppliers say, since most offset presses are now automated. Ink supply systems eliminate ink filling, allowing operators to just plug in a ink cartridge. Automated plate hanging systems and CTP technology take away register issues. These advantages give offset an obvious edge, suppliers note. "With CTP just coming into its own now, offset is the perfect and logical choice," recommends Valenta of MAN Roland.
Press manufacturers are taking more of the time-consuming makeready factors out of the picture. For example, Komori is delivering its Lithrone presses equipped with completely automated, console-driven makeready systems in 40", 44", and 50" versions. These automated presses are designed to help produce extremely accurate, predictable, saleable products at first pull with an absolute minimum number of waste sheets. The future may hold even quicker ways to get to that first sheet.
Pressing into the future
"At some point in time, even on the bigger packaging presses, we will see direct on-press imaging," predicts McKinney. "It will take another bite out of the make-ready process." There are some smaller solutions already available. Heidelberg's Speedmaster 74 DI exposes plates directly on the press and can do runs of 500 cost-efficiently, says Schmidt. It boasts six-minute makeready, but the downfall of "digital" units for the packaging industry, he points out, is that there are no diecutting or coating units available. These are some areas suppliers may address in the future.
Since package printers do not have the same level of personalization to contend with as their commercial counterparts, digital technology is not as vital, suppliers say. "Right now if you look at consumer behavior, packaging is not individualized," Schmidt says. "Consumer behavior needs to change before digital comes to become a need."
Other features offset suppliers say printers can look for in the future include more inline finishing and diecutting, presses that can run thicker materials, extended sheet size offerings, changes in paper delivery, and different drying technologies. Maybe we will see some of these advances at the next DRUPA.
